Ocala Florida Day 1

There's a  lot to complain about in this fairly rotten world, but the ability for a middle class country boy to travel is not one of them. I worked a 12 hour day on Friday, jammed home, took a shower and Rhonda and I headed for the airport. I typically travel to rural locales alone, but after the past few trips, I need to take someone along to verify some of my seemingly unbelievable exploits. Rhonda agreed to come along, as long as I let her drive the rental car, make the important decisions and pick restaurants.  I've given up far more for far less, many times.

We made it to the airport by 8:30 pm., flew all night and were  pulling into the muddy road at the Dunellon Florida Birdhouse the next day by noon.  I've stayed in some really cool backroad shacks, but I needed to upgrade a bit, since I was traveling with a beautiful woman, accustomed to marble and crystal when choosing accommodations. The Birdhouse has no marble or crystal, but the peaceful factor is off the charts. It is a small 1 bedroom cottage with an 18' ceiling. The whole little house is about 6' off the ground and on a beautiful property carved out of the bank of the Withlacootchie River. It's got a huge screened-in porch and a dock on the river. With  A/C and a bunch of ceiling fans, it is comfortable, serene and thanks to a few conversations with the owner, stocked with many of the finer accoutrements ... a bottle of  Barefoot Summer Red and a 6 lb can of Cajun flavored boiled peanuts!

One of the drawbacks of an all-night flight is it kind of saps your energy the next day. But thankfully the place has a nice hammock strung between some 100 year old cypress trees. That, along with a firm feather bed made catching up on the missed night of sleep and easy affair... up until the first raindrops. A few drops turned into a pounding rain. A pounding rain turned into thunder so loud it shook the whole cottage. Once you settle in that it's not the ending of the world, it was exhilarating to watch from the screened porch!

As night fell, a host of frogs came into the new puddles and cicadas and every manner of singing insect came out to cuss their neighbors. There was not a single human sound, but the night was as loud as any night I've ever heard. I'm not exaggerating here...the frogs sounded like a herd of angry sheep and the insect buzz was deafening. I sat out and listened well into the darkness. I may have sat and listened half the night but I got an uneasy feeling when the whole forest and swamp went suddenly and perfectly silent. My imagination of the only possibilities of the creature that could silence a whole forest got the best of me. I gingerly trotted back up to the cottage with my cell phone flash light. I've seen enough for today.